How Jae had felt. Like she was nobody. Nothing. Useless. Worthless.
A sound boiled up out of her, a wailing lament, a cry. And it was somehow both beautiful and terrible. She peeked open her eyes and saw James had pushed himself to his feet. He had that same awed look on his face that she’d seen on the Lost Boy’s—eyes wide, mouth slack. She closed her eyes again. She didn’t think she could continue if she had to watch him fall under her spell.
There was the sound of splashing water and she knew that he was in the river. She kept singing. Kept remembering. Nobody. Nothing. Useless. Worthless. It was a refrain that she repeated over and over in her mind, that she forced out through her song.
He was close. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know it. She could feel his presence. And still she sang. She didn’t know if she could stop. She wanted—to stop hurting. How many people would she have to hurt to cancel out her own pain? One? Five? Five hundred? Would it ever stop?
Her voice faltered, and that was all it took.
“Jae?” His voice was tentative, confused.
She tried to get it back—the hurt and the sadness—but it was gone with just the sound of her name on his lips.
“Jae?”
She opened her eyes.
He was right in front of her, black eyes wide, searching her face. He was so close that she felt the warmth of his breath on her skin. One of his hands went around the back of her neck. His hook tipped her chin up. And then their lips crashed together. She didn’t know who had moved in first, or if it had been a mutual coming together, something they’d both gone after. He pulled her into him, tighter, deeper, and she wrapped her tail around his legs. Water lapped at their shoulders, cooling the heat of their kiss.
Finally, he broke away, panting hard as he rested his forehead against hers.
“You are not nobody,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“How did you . . . How?” she asked, not moving away.
He dropped his hand from her neck and touched his own chest. “I felt it, like you were inside of me.” He chuckled. “It was awful.”
She laughed in spite of herself and pushed away from him. “That’s terrible. That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“It is, you’re right.” He looked down at himself, submerged up to his shoulders. Then, as if it were no big deal, he reached down and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it to shore. Then went his pants, sailing through the air.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
He held a hand out to her. “You’re naked. It’s only fair.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
Grinning, he reached out and grabbed her elbows, pulling her back to him through the water. She uncrossed her arms only to wrap them around his neck.
“You’re so warm,” she said, twining her fingers through his hair.
His lips found hers again and trailed down her neck as his hand wandered the curve of her waist. She sighed against his ear, glad to see that her transition into a mermaid hadn’t desensitized her to a man’s touch.
“I bet you wish I had the potion now,” she said, repeating her earlier sentiment.
“I told you, I don’t mind,” he insisted. “I just want you to be happy.”
And right then, with her arms around his neck and the water holding them up and pressing them together, it was easy for her to say that she was.
James fell asleep easily, in the way that men did. But he slept with his head near hers, his arms outstretched, one of her hands held tight in his. When she finally did fall asleep, the taste of him still on her lips, it was the first time in a long time that she didn’t worry about what the next day would bring.
They drifted apart from each other at some point during the night, and when she woke, she was under the water, curled against a rock. She surfaced and found James already dressed again, extinguishing the fire that had nearly burned out anyway overnight.
“Good morning,” Jae said.
He barely looked at her as he grunted his own greeting.
Jae tried to shrug it off. Maybe he just didn’t like mornings and it took him a while to get going.
Or maybe he regretted everything he’d said the night before. Maybe he regretted kissing her.
Nobody. Nothing. Worthless.
She shook her head, shutting off the voice that threatened to take over again.
The trip back down the river to the place where it touched the Lost Boys’ camp was quiet. Jae swam in silence beside the boat, and James made no effort to speak to her. It had never been so quiet between them, but she was afraid to speak and be rejected.
When they reached the bend in the river, James tied the boat off on the camp side of the shore. It was still early enough that camp was quiet and still, just as it had been the night before.
“Should I call him?” Jae asked. She was still nervous about it, but right now, feeling the way she felt, she thought she might call forth the entire camp. Maybe the chaos would work to their advantage, though.
“Give me a second,” he said, the most he’d spoken to her all morning. She watched him scrape some moss of the trunk of a nearby tree and stuff it in his ears. Then, “Go ahead.” He offered no further words of encouragement.
Hiding herself behind a small outcropping of rocks, she closed her eyes and channeled the pain and the anger. It was easier this time, because she felt it. James’ rejection was still fresh. The sound bounced around inside of her for a moment before bursting forth.
Waking up in the nursery, no dreams in her head, no sister beside her.
A sound on the shore, a rustling in the trees.
Meeting Prince Nikov, and the way he had smirked at her, taking her measure with his eyes and finding her lacking.
A golden-haired boy emerging onto the beach, a green hat tipped with a red feather. His eyes wide and unseeing.
Wren, walking away, sailing away, always leaving.
James, behind him, moving quietly, like a ghost. Like a dream.
James, and his regretful silence.
Pan, his toes in the water. James, his hand reaching for the hat.
Nobody, nothing, useless, worthless.
But she wasn’t any of those things, was she? She didn’t need a prince or her sister or a pirate to define her, to tell her who she was and who she had to be. She was a mermaid. She was strong. She was a hunter, with a powerful voice. She could fight and she could swim.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was losing it. The sadness was seeping out of her, carried away on the current.
Pan’s eyes came into focus only a few yards from her.
“What—?” he started, but then he must have heard James behind him because he whipped around, drawing a dagger from some unseen place and brandishing it at his nemesis.
“James!” Jae called out.
He jumped back but wasn’t fast enough. The blade slashed through his shirt, opening a gash on his chest. Blood welled there. Pan swung again, and James jumped again, falling to the sand.
“Bad form, Hook,” Pan spat down at him.
James rolled, just avoiding Pan’s kick. The momentum of his own movement made Pan lose his footing and sent him splashing back into the water. The cap fell from his head. Seeing it floating there, like a tiny boat, Jae rushed forward and snatched it out of the water. Then, with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she grabbed James’ collar so swiftly that she punctured the cloth with her claws, and dragged him into the river.
“You—You—” Pan was shouting at them as they retreated, brandishing his dagger, but he didn’t dare throw it and lose it to the river. “Give me back my hat.”
But she had her prize. The hat was gripped in one hand, and James in the other. She had no more need for the boy who refused to grow up.
Chapter 9
She propelled them backward with powerful strokes of her tail, and when Pan was out of sight, she flipped over, moving even faster, not stopping until they reached t
he lagoon, the one place she knew the Lost Boys wouldn’t dare try to reach them.
The tide was low enough that Marooner’s Rock was sitting high, so she deposited a sputtering, shivering James on it.
“Your chest,” she said, hoisting herself up and leaning over him to inspect the wound. The cut was small and shallow. It already seemed to have stopped bleeding.
She sat back, relieved.
“The feather,” he coughed. “Did you get it?”
She still had the cap balled up in her hand and she held it out to him now. He leaned up on one elbow and took it from her, letting it unfurl. The feather—black and deep maroon—was still wedged in the bill. He plucked it free and let the cap fall into the water.
“The Never bird gave him her feather a long time ago, after he saved her eggs when her nest fell in the lagoon,” James said, studying it.
“That was nice of him,” Jae said cautiously. Not long ago and he had been ignoring her completely. Now, he wasn’t exactly warm, but he was at least speaking, even if he wasn’t looking at her.
“Not really. No one knows that the nest fell in the water because he’d thrown stones at it. He tormented that bird, but just like all the girls, she loved Pan the best.”
The bitterness in his tone did not leave room for commentary.
He withdrew the map from inside the leather pouch at his belt. It was a little damp, but still shone with fairy dust. They spread it out between them on the rock and put the feather on top of it, both of them staring, waiting for something to happen. Another riddle, maybe, or some sort of clue.
Nothing.
James picked up the feather and brushed it over the map, then waved it around like he was dusting something off.
Still nothing.
Carelessly, he tossed the feather into the air. It floated back down, landing in the exact center of the map, its tip touching a spot just west of the mountain.
“Hm.” Jae leaned in, studying it, and then tried again, tossing the feather up.
It came down on the edge of the map this time, but the tip of the feather still seemed to touch the same bit of land.
“Thrice,” Jae muttered, remembering the first line of the riddle.
She threw it again. The third time, an X appeared in the place where the feather pointed.
“James,” Jae said.
He hadn’t been paying any attention but rolled toward her now. His eyes went wide and he jerked the map up, studying it. “It’s in the Flooded Lands. The marshland. Maybe . . .” He squinted at the map.
“Maybe what?”
“No way. I think . . .”
“What?” Jae demanded, laughing as she tugged the map away, trying to see what he saw.
“It must be in the Never bird nest.”
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t learn her lesson after her nest fell in the water, but she did start building it somewhere where the boys were less likely to reach her. It’s a good hiding place, I suppose.” He squinted at the map, still not looking at her. “She always builds in the same place. The only way to get to it would be to get the bird away from the nest, and she’s very protective of her eggs.”
“That’s what I have to do next, then? Get her away from her nest and then dig around in it until I find the potion?”
James’ brow furrowed. “Why are you saying that you have to do it?”
“You obviously don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t know what happened between last night and today, but you’ve made it very clear—”
“No, no, Jae, wait.” He was rolling up the map and stuffing it back into his pouch.
“I need the map, Captain,” she said, holding out her hand.
He didn’t make any move to give it to her.
“Fine.” It seemed like the nest was her last stop, anyway. She would find it, find the potion, and deliver it to her sister. Then, she would drink it like the good girl she was and let Wren whisk her back to Starlake where she could waste away her days in solitude. Or she wouldn’t drink it at all and retreat instead into the water. But James had been right in that, at least—whatever she chose, it would be up to her.
She pushed away from the rock, diving into the water with a splash.
“Jae, no, wait,” she heard James call from where she’d left him on the rock.
But she ignored him. The tide would rise soon and swallow the rock, and he’d have to find his way back to land or drown. Either way, it wasn’t her problem anymore. He had lied to her, with his words and with his body, and she’d been the fool to believe him. She’d almost changed her whole life for him, just like Clove. And just like Clove, she’d realized just in time that he wouldn’t do the same for her.
The marshlands—or the Flooded Lands, as James had called them—were a quiet, melancholy place compared to the rest of the island. The trees did not sparkle with fairy lights. Neither the boisterous sounds of the pirate tavern nor the laughter of the mermaids in the lagoon reached this far. The water was dark and full of debris, and the trees were thin and bare, poking out of the water like bones.
She’d realized too late of course, that, other than having seen the feather from Pan’s hat, she had no idea what a Never bird looked like. She hoped only that she would know it when she saw it. And how to get it off its nest? Another mystery. She hesitated, her heart pounding in her chest, and wondered if she could go back for Wren. She hadn’t failed, not really. She’d gotten the map and figured out the location of the potion. She didn’t have to be the one to retrieve it.
But if Wren was the one to get it, and Wren was the one to give it to her, wasn’t it more Wren’s decision than hers in the end?
So, she carried on, even as the sun set and the sky grew dark. The tide rose, and soon she was level with the lowest tree branches, having to duck beneath them as her eyes scanned them for a nest. What would it even look like? Was it a typical bird’s nest of twigs? Or something more exotic, as the island was prone to?
A great squawk interrupted the quiet stillness. Jae whirled, her eyes scanning the skies and the trees above her. There, just a few trees away and nearly at eye level, sat a large bird with a long neck and great, curling red and black tail feathers. Its beak was long and thin, tapering to a point at the end, and she was glaring suspiciously at Jae. Beneath her was a large bundle of twigs.
Jae took a deep breath. So, she’d found the nest. Now what?
Her first thought was to throw rocks at it as Pan had done, but she didn’t want to anger the bird if at all possible, and she certainly didn’t want to hurt the nest. But what could lure a mother away from her babies? The bird was still regarding her coolly, apparently trying to decide what kind of threat she posed.
She had yet to think of anything when there was another sound, a sort of rustling, and a distant shout. Then, another bird, giant and dark—
No, not a bird. A man.
James was falling through the trees, arms spread wide, shirt flapping behind him. Jae watched, stunned into stillness, when finally he seemed to get control of himself and shoot upward again. A small, tinkling light circled him—a fairy, she realized. He was flying. Oh, how she had loved the feeling of flying, but she realized she didn’t miss it, because it had never left her. Swimming now, with the speed and ease of a mermaid, felt very much the same.
He caught sight of Jae and then the Never bird a few yards away, and set his mouth in a grim, determined line. He dove, swooping low, plucking at the Never bird’s tail. The bird squawked and snapped its sharp beak at him, but didn’t move from her perch. James came to a stop just before disappearing back into the branches overhead and turned, the wind rustling his hair, the fairy buzzing around him, shouting what she hoped were encouraging words.
Another pass, and the bird stood, spreading her wings threateningly. James stopped again, hovering in midair, and turned to look at the bird.
“Come on, you lazy, winged beast,” he shouted.
The bird crowed back at him, something no
ne of them understood but was undoubtedly very rude.
James tucked his arms and legs in and dove, headed straight for the nest. He went right by it, not even touching it, but it was the last straw for the Never bird. She stepped off after him, the mermaid intruder forgotten. James’ maniacal laughter was the last thing she heard before they were out of sight completely.
He’d come back. Yes, he’d been horrible to her after weaseling his way into her heart and her life. And yes, she’d left him stranded on Marooner’s Rock to sink or swim. In spite of all that, he’d come back to help her, whether she liked it or not.
She couldn’t let it be for nothing. Swimming forward, she approached the nest cautiously. It was an oblong, almost hat-shaped thing, with twigs forming a perfect rim all around its edge. She lifted herself up on the branch. Inside, two white eggs huddled together. She gently moved them aside and began to feel around inside the nest, sticking her fingers between sticks and plumage, searching for anything that felt out of place. There was nothing there.
After replacing the eggs, she carefully reached her hand under the nest and discovered that the branch was hollow, with an opening just big enough for her hand if she moved away some of the debris. Her heart picked up speed as she plunged her hand inside. Her fingers brushed something cold and smooth, like glass. As gently as if she were still handling the eggs, she withdrew the vial and held it up to the light to inspect. A thick, orange liquid rolled inside, moving like sticky honey.
She dropped back down to the water, the potion clutched in her hand. James hadn’t come back yet, bird and fairy in tow. The swamp was quiet again. She could take the potion now—get it over with. It would be done. There would be no more debate, no more talking about it, thinking about it.
No more mermaids.
No more swimming through the open ocean. No more hunting, no more Assana. No more feeling like she actually belonged somewhere, like she had a purpose beyond “sit and wait.” Sit and wait for her sister, sit and wait for Astanrog’s army to march through Black Glacier Pass for her, sit and wait for something—anything—to happen to her. Doing that had brought James to her, had brought her here, to this island, to this moment. Had all that happened to her just for her to go back to waiting some more? Or was she supposed to learn from it, take from it and start making things happen instead?
Kingdom of Villains and Vengeance Page 42